Thursday, October 13, 2011

Prioritizing and Seeing Success

You know that History class I was struggling with? It is true that changing teaching strategies can help (I am sure you already knew that!) I did a structured jigsaw lesson yesterday, split the students into groups and had them work in different rooms and viola! Worked like a charm.....maybe it had part to do with the fact that the kids who don't love history were paired with those that do....but nonetheless I am happy and they really seemed into it! Success!


I'm swamped. I really am! My marking and correcting pile just increased ten-fold when I had managed to make 3 projects due on the same day....what was I thinking!? Here is the lesson of this blog post though.....prioritize and create manageable chunks to work with when you are overwhelmingly swamped. 


The idea of prioritizing is something that can be related to a jigsaw lesson like I did in History yesterday because I am splitting up large chunks of information/marking and making it manageable to work through. I will focus my attention on the things that need to be back to the students more quickly because then we can move on, while the projects are end of unit pieces of work and are not crucial to studying for an exam.


I am like Santa when it comes to marking. NOT in the way that only the good students get marked first ha ha - there is no such thing as good students and bad students in my opinion, only those that choose to put more effort into their work or try their hardest. Anyway, I am like Santa because I make my list (my marking TO DO list), and check it twice (or more!) and then get to work on stroking names of assignments off of that list. When I do finally see the end in sight I sit back in my chair and say 'there! That feels awesome to be done!' It is that feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that I can go home and lounge on the couch either reading a good book of my choice or watching some TV because guess what, I deserve it! Give yourself a break busy teachers because we all have those times like I am in now where you are swamped by a pile of stuff to do, but you need to step back and appreciate the fact that life goes on and remember to reward yourself when you make accomplishments. Speaking of rewards, my 'blogging break' time is now over and I need to get back to that crazy pile of marking.....until next time, keep your chin up because a break is around the corner!

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